


Like Everybody Else

by Debate



Series: Our Love is a Forest [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emori learns compassion and is a little shook up, Emori-POV, Episode s02e12: Rubicon, F/M, Missing Scene, some slight love at first sight oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25436830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Debate/pseuds/Debate
Summary: “It was an easy con, Emori, why are you so rattled?” Otan asks and it’s clear that she won’t be able to brush off his questions this time. But the problem is that it was an easy con, and she can’t help but wish that it had been harder, had dragged on a little longer.[Post Rubicon, Emori doesn’t quite know how to feel about stealing from skaikru.]
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Series: Our Love is a Forest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/996759
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Like Everybody Else

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on tumblr back in like, 2018, I'm just posting here for prosperity (and cause I love memori a lot). Enjoy!

Knot tying is easy and familiar, and the thing with which Emori focuses on so she doesn’t ruminate on the last couple of hours. The reins of the horse that she calls Gappie, but that Otan refuses to name, are familiar in her hands, as are the handles of the cart. She needs familiarity right now, needs the imprint on the handle that’s worn down to shape of her hand, and the smell of the leather tethers.

“ _It’s good_ ,” she says to Otan in their language, and he kicks the horse forward. She has to step over John’s arm where it’s limp on the ground before she can hop into the cart, and for a moment she thinks she can see it twitch.

As Otan guides the horse she watches the members of skaikru, ostensibly to make sure they don’t make any attempts to follow, but really she just has her eyes on John. Jaha is kneeling over him now, trying to wake him, but they turn a corner around a dune before she can see if he was successful.

 _“What’s wrong?_ ” Otan asks, the concern in his voice more in relation to his distrust of the people they’ve just robbed and less in regards to her personal well-being. Before the con he had quite a few qualms, considering how unfamiliar they were with skaikru, and she knows that he probably trusts them less than any one of the clans simply for their unpredictability. That shouldn’t be surprising of course, Otan hates change, hates anything that’s new. She’s glad she doesn’t have to explain how different skaikru are; she doesn’t yet quite know herself how to feel about them.

 _“Nothing,”_ she responds easily, although it is of course untrue. She keeps waiting to feel the swell of satisfaction that comes from a good con, but it doesn’t come. Her mouth just tastes like sand.

 _“Emori…”_ Otan presses because he knows her too well.

 _“We should stop soon, take inventory,”_ she interrupts. Otan turns over his shoulder to look at her, but she only rolls her eyes at his prodding concern.

They stop as she suggests shortly after. There isn’t much tech, although nearly every pack has a gun in it, but there’s plenty of food and water, more than enough to last a couple more weeks and their journey out of the Dead Zone.

Emori splits one of the rations for Otan and her to share for their meal, and Otan is reaching for a canteen when she recognizes it as the one she had drank out of earlier that day.

 _“Can I have that one?_ ” she asks, more eager than she had meant to. Otan glances at her with confusion, as he has since they reunited, but he hands it over regardless.

 _“It was an easy con, Emori, why are you so rattled?_ ” Otan asks and it’s clear that she won’t be able to brush off his questions this time. But the problem is that it was an easy con, and she can’t help but wish that it had been harder, had dragged on a little longer.

 _“I didn’t think that there are people like that,”_ she says.

_“People like what?”_

Emori shrugs, trying to explain it to herself and to Otan at the same time.

 _“They were just so different,”_ Emori finally settles on. _“It was something new, exciting.”_

 _“All people are the same,_ ” Otan says, and he’s right, and she agrees, has no doubt that if she had stuck around a bit longer they would have shunned her too, but that doesn’t change the way John hadn’t so much as flinched when she showed him her hand.

 _“There was a boy,_ ” she adds, _“I liked him.”_

She expects Otan to berate her, but instead he looks at her like he finally understands the itch she’s felt on the inside of her chest since she denied Jaha’s offer to work together.

 _“But it doesn’t matter because I’ll never see him again,_ ” she says. The sandy taste in her mouth persists, so she opens the canteen and drinks the last of John’s water.


End file.
